Silent Encounter
by Higuchimon
Summary: Sometimes there's only one way that you can say thank you. How did a night out in a bar lead to this?


**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters presented here and am not making any profit off of this whatsoever.  
**Title:** Silent Encounter  
**Word Count:** 5,566  
**Rated:** PG-13  
**Romance:** Kaiba Seto x Amelda  
**Notes:** This takes place a few years after the Ceremonial Duel, is set in the manga-verse, and was written for the fourth season of the Yu-Gi-Oh Pairings Challenge. Comments and criticism gratefully accepted.  
**Summary:** Two strangers meet in a bar. Before the night is over, they won't be that strange to each other anymore.

* * *

Amelda had no idea of why he was out here. Drinking wasn't one of his favorite pastimes. If it came to that, dueling was what he preferred to do. The Pro Leagues that had been set up appealed to him, and he had been giving thought to check into them as soon as possible. But not tonight. Tonight he was in some kind of a bar, one that he didn't even remember the name of, and there was a drink in front of him that he couldn't remember the name of either.

The taste wasn't all that memorable either, come to think of it. He sipped it, and while it didn't exactly taste like water, he couldn't think of anything else to compare it to either. From his admittedly limited experience, he suspected that it was going to be very expensive.

Well, he could afford it. He wasn't rich by any means, but he was comfortable, and he didn't do this often enough that it drained his wallet. One or two drinks wouldn't hurt anything.

He stared down into the drink itself, trying to think of some legitimate reason he was here. Maybe that was good. If there was a reason and he couldn't remember it, then that was probably the reason he was here in the first place: to forget. The reasoning was a little loopy, but he was fine with it.

Another couple of sips finished it off, and before the empty glass had been on the table a full minute, a full one had replaced it. He blinked at it, until a vague memory of telling the bartender to keep them coming swam briefly through his mind. Perhaps he did have a reason for being here after all.

He was halfway through the next drink when he became slightly more aware that there were eyes on him. That wasn't so unusual. He got looks almost anywhere he went, due to his outfit and his hair. Red hair like his wasn't that common in Japan. He didn't know why he stayed around here.

Maybe that was something else he had come here to forget. If so, he was doing one hell of a job of it. He liked that thought, and drained more of the alcohol down his throat. It burned just a little, not enough to really make him want to stop, but just enough so he did it again, wanting more of the sensation.

_So, who's looking at me this time?_ He glanced around, not caring if the other person saw him. After all, they were looking at him. Fair was fair. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. And all of that.

It took him another few minutes before he spied who had to be the one watching him. It was a blue-eyed brunet, seated not at the bar but at one of the tables. He was alone, wearing a trench coat of some color that couldn't quite be identified, not with the shifting lights of the bar and Amelda's own growing state of inebriation. There was a small glass in front of him, but he wasn't drinking from it. Instead, he simply stared at Amelda as if expecting the other to read his mind or his intentions from the look alone.

_Huh. Wonder what he wants._ Amelda finished off his glass and beckoned for another one as soon as the bartender looked in his general direction. Let the other guy sit there and stare at him. He wasn't drunk enough to do anything right now other than sit here and drink some more.

Besides, he didn't even know who the staring guy was. Amelda wasn't in the mood for a one night stand. At least not without some kind of an introduction first, and he didn't really want to be introduced just yet. Not to anything that he couldn't drink, and that brunet looked a little too solid for that.

All things considered, however, Amelda did sort of find the guy attractive. Finding guys attractive, especially once he had drunk enough, wasn't anything new to him. He did have a habit of picking up, or being picked up by, some of the worst bastards that he'd ever encountered. That was fine; one-night stands had ceased to have that much meaning for him. He'd even had a couple of two-night stands, and once a one-week stand. That one had been interesting. Too bad he couldn't even remember the guy's name, much less where he lived anymore.

Amelda finished two more drinks, and looked over every now and then to see if the guy was still watching him. He was. _Wonder who he is._ Really, he kept thinking that he should know who it was. The guy didn't exactly have one of those kind of faces. Amelda was certain that he'd seen him somewhere else. The hard part was figuring out just where.

_Maybe he's famous._ That would make sense for why he recognized him. He supposed that if he had to, he could ask the bartender. But he kind of wanted to figure it out on his own. He'd been figuring things out on his own for years anyway. Some hot and strange guy in a bar shouldn't be that hard to deal with.

He glanced over again, and this time there was someone else seated next to the strange guy. The new one was pretty good looking himself, with black hair tied back in a ponytail and startling green eyes. Amelda snorted to himself and turned back to his drink. There was no stab of jealousy there. Just a mild wonder of why the brunet had kept staring at him when his boyfriend hadn't arrived yet. _Good thing I didn't go over there._ That would've been embarrassing, and the last thing Amelda wanted was to be embarrassed.

Well, to be honest, there were probably lots of other things he would have wanted less. But tonight, he would settle for just not being embraced. Just having a lot to drink and possibly having a couple of hours of really great sex would be all he wanted.

Of course now he was going to have to find someone else that he might possibly have that really great sex with. Or even just average sex. Too bad. The brunet had looked as if he might have been good for better than average.

He couldn't help but look back one more time, and as he did, the green-eyed guy got up, clapped the other firmly on the shoulder, and headed off towards the bar. Amelda watched, just a little curious, and couldn't help but feel a slight hint of pleasure at the semi-annoyed look the brunet shot after the other guy. It made no sense, really. But, he was drunk, so he wrote it off to that.

"Hey there, gorgeous," he heard the black-haired guy say as he came up to another guy at the bar. He was obviously attracted to brunets, since this one had brown hair as well, though Amelda couldn't see if he had the same kind of ice blue eyes that the one he'd been watching had possessed. "Hope I didn't make you wait too long."

"Everything okay over there?" The guy at the bar asked, wrapping an arm around the black-haired guy and leaning in closer to him. "Don't have to worry about you running off again, do I?"

"No, gorgeous," Black Hair said, leaning closer to run his fingers through Younger Guy's hair. "I'm all yours."

Amelda snorted a bit to himself and turned his full attention back to his drink. So he'd made a mistake or two about who was dating who. It wasn't as if he knew any of them. Though to be honest, Black Hair did look a little familiar too, though not as much as Blue Eyes did. Speaking of Blue Eyes…Amelda finished off his drink and looked back over there one more time.

Blue Eyes looked as if he were quite as annoyed by the other two as Amelda himself was. Actually, he looked quite a bit _more_ annoyed and was drinking some of his own drink as if doing so would erase something from his mind. _Yeah. I think I've had enough for right now._ Right now would probably last until he got over there, but he wasn't that picky on definitions at the moment.

Besides, their mutual annoyance over those two, no matter what the reason for it, at least gave them something to talk about, right? So it wasn't as if he was going to be going over there without some kind of a purpose. And Blue Eyes _had_ been staring him fairly regularly for at least an hour or so. Amelda had been in enough bars to know what that usually preluded: sex or violence. Blue Eyes hadn't made any violent moves towards him, so Amelda presumed that sex was probably somewhere in both of their mental agendas. Time to make the first move. After all, he really did want to know just who this pretty brunet was.

No, not pretty. Handsome. Because he was, even if it was a handsomeness composed of cold lines and harsh rigidity.

Amelda got to his feet, absurdly pleased to see that the room didn't spin around him as he did. He took a few careful steps, just in case that changed, and when it didn't, he headed right over to the table where the brunet sat. He dropped himself into the empty chair there, not bothering to ask if it might possibly have been being saved for someone else. After all, the only other person he'd seen with Blue Eyes was Black Hair, and Black Hair was over there with Younger Guy at the bar.

"You were staring at me." Amelda stated calmly. "Why?"

"Because I wanted to." The brunet replied just as calmly. Amelda was even more certain suddenly that he knew him from _somewhere_. He just couldn't think of where from right now. It was on the very tip of his tongue…and it kept dancing away. Maybe how drunk he was had something to do with it. No matter. It wasn't as if names were all that important, not with what he expected to be doing later on. Though maybe they should be exchanged, if only because cries of 'whoever you are' didn't quite sound that wonderful.

Amelda reached over and picked up the other's half-full glass, sniffing at the liquid inside. Whatever it was, it certainly smelled expensive. Well, he hadn't paid for it. So he casually drank it down, setting the glass back when he was finished.

There wasn't even the smallest hint of a smile, but he thought the other was amused by that anyway, even as the brunet gestured briefly for the bartender to refill the glass.

"Do you always take other people's drinks?" He asked, one eyebrow raised ever so slightly. Amelda shrugged casually.

"Sometimes. Not always." He caught the bartender's eye when he got there and indicated he wanted another drink. He could still remember who _he_ was. Therefore, he decided he was not possibly drunk enough. "If they stare at me. So, why did you want to stare at me?"

Really, he _had_ to know this person. They were just so familiar, but the name utterly escaped him and it was getting annoying. He'd have to find a way to find it out. Directly asking came to mind, first and foremost. After all, he'd wanted to find out for himself, and while asking the bartender hadn't come under that category, asking Blue Eyes himself did. "And who are you, anyway?" He really didn't want to call the other Blue Eyes all night long.

That couldn't have been a smile. Those lips were not built to smile. Smirk, yes. Amelda would believe a smirk coming from them. But a gentle smile was not meant to be there at all. So he was quite grateful when it turned into a proper smirk. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. No one does in places like this."

"Tell me anyway." Amelda sipped at the drink the bartender had brought him. It wasn't as good as what his new companion had had in _his_ glass, but it was doing the job anyway. "Maybe I'll surprise you."

"Kaiba Seto." The answer came after a few quiet moments of the brunet staring at him some more, and Amelda had just about given up that he would get a proper answer.

Kaiba Seto. _That_ name burst into his mind, clearing away a little of the drunkenness. _Miruko…_ Another name twisted along side of it, with the sound of gunfire and bombs following it. He drank the rest of his drink quickly and beckoned for another. That was what he'd wanted to forget: that today his brother would've been another year older. Instead, he was just dead.

"I told you that you wouldn't believe me." Kaiba's smirk hadn't failed for a second now, and Amelda didn't even know what to think about that. He didn't _want_ to think about anything except the taste of that next drink, which he drained just as quick as he had the ones before it, if not quicker, and motioned for another. He should've just stayed over there and found someone else to make a pass or two at. It wasn't as if there weren't plenty of attractive people in this place. You couldn't throw a brick without hitting four of them, now that he took a really good look. He could see three blonds and two other redheads that could have attracted his attention instead of one of the few people he would have considered strangling before screwing.

"I do believe you," he half-growled the words out once he could say them semi-coherently.. "I just don't believe that I met you here." Why would Kaiba even be here? He was rich and important and had so many better things to do with his life than hang out in a bar. He could at least have been home with _his_ brother. After all, he still _had_ his!

"I do get out now and then," Kaiba replied a touch dryly. Amelda would have gladly hit him if the bouncer hadn't been in plain sight. He thought it would have been worth it anyway…if he'd been a little drunker. Since he wasn't, all he did was drink more. "I don't think I've seen too many people trying to get drunk just because they meet me."

"They should. It would probably improve the experience of meeting you." Amelda bit the words out as if each one caused him pain. They were true, so far as he was concerned, anyway. Drinking certainly made this night a little less painful for him.

Kaiba sipped at his drink, not taking his eyes off of the redhead. "You say that like I've done something to hurt you personally." If Amelda had been a little more sober, he might have noticed how unnaturally calm the words were: and just how slightly tense Kaiba was.

"You did. Or to be perfectly frank about it, it was your _father_." Amelda threw the words like weapons now, and he didn't care who they hit or what kind of damage they did. "Do you know what today is?" He didn't wait for an answer. How could there have been any answer other than 'no'? "Today would have been my brother's birthday. But because of all those weapons that your _father_ sold, it's not."

Kaiba did not appear to so much as twitch in response. "KaibaCorp hasn't made weapons in years. I changed all of that."

"I know. And that's the only reason I'm still sitting here and not finding a place where you're not." Amelda stared into the empty glass and decided he was not quite drunk enough for the moment. He suspected that he was about to make a very stupid decision and he was going to need to be a little more sloshed before he actually did it. He didn't know what Miruko would have thought about this. He didn't know what _he_ thought about this. But the desire was certainly there, at least on his part. It made him, frankly, sick to his stomach to think about. Maybe he'd get lucky and Kaiba would feel the same way and it wouldn't happen.

The other man looked down into his own glass and if he found answers in there to whatever questions that were going through his mind, Amelda never knew. He never even knew if there _were_ questions going through his mind. Instead, he finished the glass and looked back at Amelda himself. "I have better drinks at my mansion."

"You think that I care?" Amelda snapped harshly, wanting very little other than to _not_ make the decision that he thought he was going to. He had no idea of why he was sitting here still instead of trying to find one of those other, more attractive people, who weren't related to the man who owned the company that had provided the weapons that had killed his brother. There were more than enough of _those_ around too. "What makes you think that I'd go anywhere with you?" Unless he had a signed promise that he could throw Kaiba off of a cliff, he wouldn't so much as go up to the bar with him, much less back to his mansion!

Kaiba didn't even give the petulant sigh that Amelda had halfway been expecting. Instead he looked straight over at him. "It was an offer. Since you said no, that was an answer." And that was all there was to say on the matter, as far as Kaiba was concerned, it seemed.

Amelda was perfectly willing to let it end like that as well. But he didn't get up. Instead, he drank a little more. He knew that Miruko would have wanted him to remember him happily, and most of the time he did. But once in a while, on days like this, it was hard for him to really keep that up. So he wanted to forget the best that he could, and the only two things that really made him forget were getting drunk and having sex.

"So what are you really doing out here?" he asked at last. Not that he cared. But it made for something to listen to that wasn't the sound of everyone else having a genuine good time. The bastards.

"Remembering an old enemy," Kaiba replied after a moment or two of thoughtful silence. "He left here several years ago." He drank again before continuing. "I never had the chance to say good-bye."

If Amelda had cared, he might have had something to say about how Kaiba might possibly see him again someday. Instead, he just shrugged. "Not like that's unusual. I didn't either." No, he wasn't going to relive it in vivid detail. He had more of his drink instead.

To be honest, he wasn't surprised that Kaiba wanted to think about an old enemy instead of an old friend. He didn't think Kaiba had any friends. Who'd want to be his, anyway?

He leaned back in his chair, noting absently that it was amazingly comfortable. The stool at the bar had been too. This entire place was really about ten cuts above what he'd been thinking it was. What was the name of it again? Oh, right, there it was over the bar. _Chances Are_. "Who named this place, anyway?"

"He did." Kaiba nodded towards Black Hair. "He's the owner."

Well, wasn't _that_ kind of interesting. "I thought he was your boyfriend or something." Amelda said bluntly. Tact was for people who cared.

"Otogi?" The brunet snorted at the very thought. "As if he'd take his eyes away from his boy toy there." There was a hint of amusement there as well, and Amelda wondered if there was some jealousy that he couldn't quite see. "Those two have been glued at the hip since they met each other."

Amelda shrugged some. "I guess he's all right, if you like younger guys." He'd always gotten along better with those of his own age than he had anyone younger or older. As far as he could tell, Younger Guy over there was maybe about twenty or twenty-two to his twenty-nine. Not that _much_ of a difference, but it was enough for him.

"Otogi was just…taking care of a customer." Kaiba's lip curled, as if what he said and what he meant were two different things. "He's like that sometimes." The unspoken words of 'especially with me' hovered for a moment, until Amelda took another drink and found something else to be of far more interest, which was the fact his glass was empty again.

While he waited for the bartender to fix that, he ran his finger over the pristine white cloth draped over the table in various patterns. Here a spiral, there a circle, now a lily, now a rose, now a square, now a few Duel Monsters symbols. All he wanted to do was kill a bit of time again. "I'd give anything to be able to kill the bastard who had those weapons made." He would've done the same thing to the people who had used those weapons, but they were already dead themselves, killed in their stupid war.

Kaiba looked at him, the faintest hints of yet another smirk on his lips. Amelda wondered what that was about, until the brunet killed another drink and told him, "You're too late. I already took care of that."

Well. That was not what he'd been expecting to hear. "You did what?" And Amelda was more surprised to hear that than he'd been to hear who it was he was sitting down with.

"I took care of that." Kaiba looked at him again calmly. Amelda tried to get his mind wrapped around what he was hearing. He couldn't do it here. There was just too much going on, and if what Kaiba said was true…well…maybe…

"That offer still open?" he asked at last, finishing off his drink. He wasn't too proud to admit that maybe he could have made a mistake of some kind earlier. He wasn't entirely certain just where or when he made it or what it was, but it could have happened.

Kaiba didn't take his attention off of him, though his lips bent ever so slightly. Then he turned towards the bartender and motioned him back over. "The bill."

"Mine, too." Amelda added in, pulling out his wallet. At least he had already paid his rent for the month. Though he might wind up going a bit light on food before it was over with. Well, he could always find some mini tournament and see if he could win some cash there. He was good enough for that, even these days.

Amelda didn't pay too much attention to anyone else watching the two of them leave the bar. Though he was fairly certain that Black Hair, Otogi, was grinning wickedly as they left. Let him. Whatever happened wasn't any of his business, and he still wasn't all that sure if anything was _going_ to happen. He just wanted to find out what Kaiba was talking about and get it all straightened out in his head.

He'd driven his motorcycle there and headed for it without a thought, until Kaiba stopped him with a word. "Leave it here. Otogi can keep an eye on it and you can get it tomorrow."

Amelda frowned for a moment and then shook his head. "I can drive it." He wasn't that drunk. Really.

"Leave it." Kaiba's voice held no hint of a hope for a compromise. "Keep the key and it'll be safe." Before Amelda could argue about it any longer, Kaiba tugged a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed a number. If the music hadn't been so loud, Amelda thought he might have heard a ringing coming from the club behind them. That, and the distance from the door, made it hard to be certain. "Otogi, there's going to be a motorcycle in your parking lot all night. The owner will be by to pick it up tomorrow." Amelda couldn't tell what Otogi said about that, but Kaiba went on, "Make sure it's still in one piece, that's all."

And then he closed the cell and put it back in his pocket, gesturing Amelda to follow him over to the limousine as it approached.

Inside said limo was every bit as luxurious as Amelda would have believed it to be, if he'd ever bothered to think about what the inside of Kaiba Seto's limousine was possibly like. The seats were soft to the touch and it held virtually every conceivable modern convenience that could have been put in there. Amelda didn't think he would have been surprised if there were one or two more that had been specially designed to fit in there regardless. From everything he'd ever heard about Kaiba, he more than likely considered the laws of physics to be mere guidelines.

The windows were tinted slightly to allow those who were inside to see what was going on outside, but anyone looking in would see nothing. That fit entirely with Kaiba as well. Though tonight, Amelda himself didn't care about what was going on in the outside world. He settled himself on the far side of the seat and closed his eyes. He hadn't quite begun the hangover part of the evening, for which he was grateful. He intended to do a little more drinking still, after all. But he was a little on the tired side.

No words were exchanged on the trip, and Amelda scarcely even noticed how long it took. He just wasn't thinking of anything to be honest. He was aware that Kaiba had said he'd finished off the person who'd had those weapons made, but he really, really wanted to get more details on that.

And somewhere in there, he had not forgotten that Kaiba Seto, while a complete bastard in every way he could think of and several others that had yet to cross his mind, was also an extraordinarily attractive young man and in other circumstances, he wouldn't have hesitated to fall into bed with him already. He wasn't turning down the chance now, at least not completely. But he did want to give it a little more thought than he had just yet.

"We're here." Kaiba spoke the first words that he had since they'd gotten into the limousine, even as the door opened and he stepped out. Amelda followed, glancing over towards the huge house as soon as he emerged. It was certainly impressive. He had no idea of how many rooms it had. Certainly more than his little apartment, which had a bedroom, bathroom, and a combination kitchen/dining room/living room, and that was it.

He followed Kaiba inside, and was led to a large, well-appointed room dominated mostly by a wide-screen television and the promised much better selection of alcohol. In a very short period of time, the two of them were seated on a couch with drinks in their hand. Kaiba stared at his for a moment, then began.

"Kaiba Gozaburo adopted me and my brother Mokuba when we were very young, since he didn't have any children of his own. His main belief at the time was that those who lose die, and he taught that to me." His lips moved slightly into a feral smirk. "And I proved how well I'd learned when I bought controlling stock in KaibaCorp and thus took it over from him. He threw himself out of the window of the top floor of the main building because of that. There were quite a few witnesses who testified that he must have went insane at the shock, and that was why he did it. I was sixteen at the time, and because I'd proven I could take care of myself and Mokuba, especially with the company in my possession, I was emancipated, and I've run KaibaCorp ever since.

"Until then, it was, as you know, a weapons manufacturer. I remade it into the company that it is today." The smirk widened just a touch. "And it's even more successful than it ever was as a weapons company."

Amelda listened without speaking, though Kaiba hadn't exactly given him a chance to interrupt. The concise nature of what he said convinced him of the truth more than anything else would have. He was certain there was quite a bit he was missing, but that had covered what actually pertained to him. His thoughts swirled about as he tried to get it all into his head.

_He did it. The idiot threw himself out the window, but it was because of what Kaiba did._ It wouldn't bring his brother back, or any of the other people who'd been killed by KaibaCorp weaponry, but it _did_ mean that no one else would have to deal with their families being killed by _those_ weapons. There would always be people dying of something. There would always be other weapons manufacturers.

But that one source had been dried up, and Amelda could not help but be glad about that. He drank his drink quietly and stared at some of the expensive artwork on the wall. Kaiba appeared to be lost in his own thoughts as well as he drank.

_I should thank him._ Just how escaped him at first…then he knew. It had been growing in his mind all along. It would be more personal than just a thank-you letter, though ultimately meaningless as well. Somehow that made it even better in Amelda's mind. If the drink had anything to do with it, he didn't care. It was a good idea, as far as he was concerned, and that was all that mattered.

He wasn't just going to ask if Kaiba wanted to have a night of meaningless, but hopefully quite intense and pleasurable, sex, though. At least, he wasn't going to ask with _words_.

He finished his wine and set the glass down out of the way and looked to see Kaiba doing the same thing. Without thinking about it too much, partially because he suspected if he did he wouldn't go through with this, he moved over and kissed Kaiba quite firmly on the lips.

It wasn't the kind of kiss that people wrote all manner of purple prose about. He could taste a little bit of what Kaiba had been drinking on his lips still and that told him if he had to, they could both blame it on the wine. It was a strong kiss, but one that didn't hold quite as much of that fabled passion as it could have if they were two other people. But it also got across what he wanted quite clearly.

Kaiba returned the kiss, with no more passion than Amelda would have expected, but quite certainly with enough interest that he didn't pull away any time soon. When they did pull back, Amelda spoke before Kaiba had a chance to.

"This is just to say thank you for getting rid of the bastard." And then he kissed again, a little deeper and a little more intently this time. He had no idea of where Kaiba's room was in this complicated pile of architecture, and he didn't think he really wanted to wait. If there were traumatized servants, he honestly couldn't bring himself to care.

But Kaiba had something else on his mind, and he put up a hand to stop Amelda's ravaging of his mouth. He spoke it in one word. "Mokuba."

It took Amelda a moment to work through exactly what the other meant by that, but when Kaiba pushed him aside enough to get up and started to lead him up the stairs, he began to get the idea. Servants could be traumatized without either of them caring. Mokuba was something else entirely.

So when they did come together, it was behind the soundproofed walls of Kaiba's bedroom, which really made it much more convenient. That wasn't just for the soundproofing, which they turned out to need quite a bit of, but because Kaiba had everything they would need for it in there, and the downstairs parlor where they'd been had been a little lacking in the supplies.

"Do you thank everyone like this?" Kaiba asked afterwards. They weren't cuddling. Neither of them were inclined towards that. But it did feel very good to just relax close to each other after everything.

"No. Just people who kill bastards that I wanted to kill. That doesn't happen very often."

Kaiba hmphed softly, and if Amelda had been looking, he might have seen another of those enticing smirks. He was, however, too busy marveling over the fact that the mirror on the far side of the room had what appeared to be Blue Eyes White Dragon designs on it. Then he had something else to concentrate on.

It appeared that Kaiba had amazing recovery skills in more areas than just rebuilding his company from the ground up.

Amelda couldn't say at the moment that he was displeased by that fact.

It was a very long one-night stand.

**The End**


End file.
